MIM: One assimiliation hurdle that is now irrelevant is the idea that Muslim immigrants should learn to speak French . The Islamo facist rioters have declared that violence is 'is the only way we express ourselves'.

As for the 'Anti Riot Fatwa which opined on it " not being acceptable to express desperation through arson", one can only surmise that some will conclude that Muslims will have to find other ways to 'express themselves' such as suicide bombings, which presumably do not fall under the category of arson, since blowing oneself together with other people is different then setting fire to public properties like schools and post offices.

Dalil Boubekar, the Imam of The Grand Mosque in Paris blamed the government for the riots since it did not provide housing for Muslims that was to their liking. Villepin promised that he would have a housing plan at the end of the month.

He told the French that "... Muslim immigrants in the suburbs "must be given the conditions to live with dignity as human beings", not in "disgraceful squats"...".which begs the question as what will be done for the non Muslim residents of the suburbs in the wake of the devastation wrought by their rampaging Muslim' neighbors'.

Dalil Boubakeur speaks to reporters after a meeting at the prime minister's Hotel Matignon office in Paris. (Reuters)

Additional Reporting by Hadi Yahmid, IOL Correspondent

PARIS, November 7, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – French Muslim leaders on Sunday, November 6, issued a fatwa banning Muslims from joining the unlawful riots raging across the country.

"It is not acceptable to express feelings of desperation through damaging public properties and carrying out arson," read the religious edict issued by the Union of French Islamic Organizations (UOIF)'s Fatwa Body.

"Under Islam, one cannot get one of his/her rights at the expense of others," stressed the fatwa, a copy of which was obtained by IslamOnline.net.

The fatwa cited noble verses that read: "Lo! Allah loveth not aggressors. (The Cow:190), "Eat and drink of that which Allah hath provided, and do not act corruptly, making mischief in the earth. (The Cow: 60) and "Lo! Allah loveth not the corrupt." (The Table: 64).

Sheikh Ahmad Jaballah, member of the Fatwa Body, said that the fatwa sends a strong message to the French that these riots are un-Islamic.

"It came to counter allegations by rightists and extremists who maliciously tried to link the arson to French Muslims," he told IOL.

The fatwa further underlined that minorities in France should live in dignity and suffer no racial discrimination or maltreatment.

The rioting began with the accidental electrocution of two youths fleeing police in Clichy- sous-Bois outside Paris.

Chirac's government has come under increasing pressure to halt the riots, sparked by frustration among ethnic minorities over racism, unemployment and harsh treatment by police.

Many feel trapped in the drab suburbs, built in the 1960s and 1970s to house waves of immigrant workers.

Their French-born children and grandchildren are now out on the streets demanding the equality France promised but, they say, failed to deliver.

Police Shot

French police holds shotgun shell recovered after they were shot upon in Grigny. (Reuters)

The riots intensified Sunday for an 11th night despite a vow by President Jacques Chirac to defeat it.

An Interior Ministry statement said 839 more vehicles were torched only overnight. Thirty-four police were injured in clashes and 186 rioters detained, Reuters reported.

"They really shot at officers," said one officer after about 200 youths attacked his colleagues in Grigny, south of Paris.

"This is real, serious violence. It's not like the previous nights. I am very concerned because this is mounting."

The head of France's main business group, Laurence Parisot, warned of the consequences of the violence for the French economy, notably on tourism and investment.

"France's image has been deeply damaged," she told Europe 1 radio.

The violence came shortly after Chirac broke a long silence with his first public comments since the unrest began on October 27.

"The republic is quite determined, by definition, to be stronger than those who want to sow violence or fear," he said after a domestic security council met to respond to the violence in which thousands of cars have gone up in flames so far.

Spreading

Further violence was reported in other cities, including Nantes, Rennes, Strasbourg, Lens and Toulouse.

Youths seized a bus in Saint-Etienne in central France, ordering passengers off and torching the vehicle. The driver and one passenger were hurt.

In the eastern city of Strasbourg, rioters lobbed Molotov cocktails into a primary school.

In Toulouse in the southeast, a blazing car was pushed into a metro entrance. At Lens in the north, a firebomb was thrown at a church.

In Lille, about 50 cars were torched and a Belgian television reporter was beaten up as he filmed.

The police union Action Police CFTC urged the government to impose a curfew on the riot-hit areas and call in the army to control the youths.

"Nothing seems to be able to stop the civil war that spreads a bit more every day across the whole country," it said in a statement. "The events we're living through now are without precedent since the end of the Second World War."

PARIS, Nov 7 (Reuters) - France's main Muslim organisations feuded on Monday over a fatwa one group issued against rioting after officials suggested Islamist militants might be fanning unrest across the country.

The Union of French Islamic Organisations (UOIF), a large group linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, quoted the Koran and the Prophet Mohammad to support the religious edict issued late on Sunday condemning the chaos and destruction the unrest caused.

But Dalil Boubakeur, head of France's Muslim Council and rector of the moderate Grand Mosque of Paris, denounced the move on Monday as equating Islam with vandalism and blaming all Muslims for the rioting whether they were involved or not.

"It is formally forbidden to any Muslim seeking divine grace and satisfaction to participate in any action that blindly hits private or public property or could constitute an attack on someone's life," the UOIF fatwa said.

"Contributing to such exactions is an illicit act," declared the edict, which said it was applicable to "any Muslim living in France, whether a citizen or a guest of France."

The rioters are mostly French-born youths of Arab or African origin, many of them Muslim, who say racial bias condemns them to unemployment in the rundown suburbs around main cities. France's 5 million Muslims make up 8 percent of the population.

SURPRISE AND REGRET

The sight of imams and local Muslim leaders in the suburbs calming down angry teenagers who reject all other authority has prompted French officials to warn that Islamic extremists might exploit a power vacuum to gain control over some suburbs.

Boubakeur, a political ally of President Jacques Chirac, said "many Muslims are surprised and regret that, in these dramatic and reprehensible circumstances, some Muslim organisations such as the UOIF think they can invoke God's name in a call for calm.

"We urge strict respect for French law," he said in a pointed jab at the UOIF for not mentioning law in its fatwa.

Reflecting how sensitive the issue is, UOIF Secretary General Fouad Alaoui was grilled on radio and television on Monday by journalists asking why his group made the appeal on religious grounds rather than on the basis of secular law.

"The fatwa is meant to reinforce the law," he argued.

Apart from Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, most French leaders have kept a critical distance from the UOIF because of its links with the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. Sarkozy is the only minister who has ever gone to the UOIF annual congress.

But many influential grassroots Muslim groups in the riot-hit suburbs are closer to the UOIF than other national Muslim groups and enjoy more influence than local officials.

Anthropologist Dounia Bouzar, a former member of the Muslim Council board, said local authorities often had to turn to these groups for help because social workers had lost all authority.

"That's not so bad in itself, but what bothers me is that the officials stubbornly avoid asking themselves questions about this phenomenon," she told the daily La Croix.